


A Crippling Fear of Intimacy

by placentalmammal



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 06:22:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4337297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/placentalmammal/pseuds/placentalmammal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arcade tries to talk with the Courier about her fear of intimacy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Crippling Fear of Intimacy

It didn't matter how many times Arcade reminded them that he wasn't a psychiatrist, Veronica and Cass had decided that he should be the one to talk to Six about her issues re: intimacy. Never mind that Usanagi's clinic was a fifteen minute walk from the '38, never mind that Arcade's psychiatric training had consisted of a grandmotherly, Vault-born doctor explaining how to make referrals. Never mind that he didn't particularly like Six (nothing personal, really, but she had an annoying accent and smacked while she chewed), Veronica had very earnestly insisted that "she needs to work this out with a friend," and Cass had just laughed and told him if he didn't want to get stuck with the shit jobs, he ought to show up for their meetings on time.

He eventually got Cass to admit that they'd settled the matter by way of drawn straws, except Raul had actually gotten the shortest one, but they agreed it was more than fair to let him trade with Arcade on account of his bad knees. When he asked her what bad knees had to do with staging an intervention, Cass knuckled under the pressure and admitted that they all liked Raul more than him, and what was he going to do about it, cry?

He didn't cry. Instead, he rode the elevator to the presidential suite of the Lucky 38 alone, all the while cursing his rotten luck and his inability to surround himself with people who cherished his many wonderful characteristics and valued him as individual. Cass, Raul, and the rest were all right, but there was no denying that they rated him below the dog in terms of likability and value to the group.

(He was gratified to discover that he rated above Six, at the very least.)

As was her custom, Six was alone in her room, tinkering with a broken radio. Unusually, she'd left the door open, perhaps because she'd expected to be alone in the suite. She was sitting barefoot and cross-legged at her desk, tinkering with a radio, wearing a silky red kimono jacket open over one of Boone's undershirts and a pair of mens' pajama pants salvaged from a bombed-out department store. Arcade felt rather overdressed in his boots and doctors' whites, but if her was there on Official Business, maybe it was for the best.

Her head snapped up when the elevator chimed, and she'd fixed him with her cold gaze before the doors had slid all the way open. He stepped over the threshold and into the suite, and she watched his progress for another few seconds before returning to her radio.

"Hi," he said, his voice unnaturally bright in the dim suite. "How are you?"

"Fine," she said, without looking up. "What's up?"

"Well, we--the gang, Cass and Veronica and Raul--got to talking about you."

"And?"

At some point, Arcade had seen a flowchart, either pinned to the side of a canvas tent or taped up in someone's office, that mapped out how these conversations were supposed to go. It contained typical responses to the sorts of statements he was preparing to make, as well as step-by-step instructions for "continuing the conversation" and bringing the patient to "a deeper understanding of their nervous condition." It was pre-war, type-written, with a hand-written suggestion that all patients who could afford it spend a few months in a sanatorium someplace rural, in the hopes that the sunshine and fresh air would "soothe a nervous temperament+restore order in the lives+minds of the Disturbed."

Arcade wished he'd paid more attention to the damned thing. A week in the sun wasn't going to do Six any good (Boone had posited that the sun had "cooked her brains," directly or indirectly causing her current problems), but it would have been helpful to have an outlined prepared for the speech he'd been called upon to make.

"You have a problem."

She cocked an eyebrow. "I got 99 problems, Doc."

Doc. Another infuriating habit. Another entry on his list of 101 Reasons Arcade Gannon hates Molly Kennedy, aka 'Six,' aka 'the Courier,' aka 'what did I do to deserve this.'

"Uh. Yes. But I--er, we--feel that you've isolated yourself. From, um, us." He paused, bracing himself for some outpouring of emotion. None was forthcoming. "We're you're friends," he added lamely.

"I reckon so," Six said. Arcade wasn't sure if her thoughtful tone was in response to his statement or to the dissected radio. He suspected the latter.

"We care." No reaction. "About you."

"Is that why they put you up to this?" Arcade paused again, taken aback, and Six rolled her eyes. "You ain't never liked me, Doc. I ain't blind nor stupid."

"Well," he lied, "That's not necessarily true. I have a lot of respect--"

"And I ain't never liked you, neither," she said, continuing as if he hadn't spoken. She pulled a minute brush from the depths of her kimono and began to clean the dust from some unknowable radio component. "I got no time for busybodies, Doc."

He sighed. "I'll be frank with you. Veronica found a psychiatric manual and diagnosed you with a crippling fear of intimacy. I'm not a psychiatrist--" Six snorted and he chose to ignore her "--but I have to agree with her. I know you're capable of communicating your feelings, but you've chosen not to. We just want you to open up to us."

"Because you're my friends, right," she said. Arcade thought there might be something sardonic buried deep beneath the stratified layers of her accent, but he was in no mood to unpack the meaning in her grunting five-word sentences.

"The closest you've got, at any rate."

She set the component down and returned the brush to the pocket from whence it came. "I just can't figure out why any of y'all would want to listen to my feelings." She snorted again, insurance against the possibility that her contempt might go unnoticed.

"Because we're your friends?"

She sighed and looked him in the eye for the first time since he'd entered the suite. "I appreciate your askin', Doc, but I don't need no headshrinker prying into my personal affairs. I appreciate all the help y'all have given me these past few months, but I ain't up to startin' a sewin' circle. It's not my way."

"So you're saying this and any further intervention is entirely futile?" Relief flooded through him.

"More or less," she said, returning to her radio.

"Oh thank god. I'm out. Do tell them I tried, will you?"

Six snorted, a noise that Arcade thought might be the closest she'd come to laughter in 15 years. "I can't, bein' all intimately crippled and whatnot. You'll have to tell 'em for me, won't you, Doc?"

"I'll do my best," he said, cheerily. "I'll leave you to it, then." He turned and left the room.

"Do a better job convincin' them than you did me," she called after him, and he laughed all the way down.


End file.
